<p>Allison joined HotWired in November 1994, contributing mightily and in many ways, not the least of which was her famous interactive advice column, Ask Allison. Her BA degrees in theater and dance have proved both helpful and relevant to her work in int
eractive media. Really. She tap dances incessantly. All the time. It's kind of weird.
<p>Oh, and Allison hammered out Webmonkey's interactivity plan, figuring out how the community spaces should work.
<p>Brady Clark is a native of Madison, Wisconsin. Although he began working in our offices six months ago, he only recently found a place to live ... if you get our meaning. If you ask him, "Hey, did I run into you in the Wagon Wheel Saloon in Madison in
1987?" he'll answer: "Probably not. I was 11."
<p>Oh, and Brady designed Webmonkey's real-world items, from the Webmonkey exposition booth to the Webmonkey shirts to the stickers to the screenwipes to the Webmonkey HTML quick-reference guide.
<p>Crispin Roven works for HotWired, despite the fact that he was educated at Harvard. Born in Irvington, New York, Roven wandered out to California, leaving behind a trail of sunflower seeds and JavaScript. He likes to "forage in the woods for mushrooms"
for a good time.
<p>Oh, and Crispin wrote the scripts behind Webmonkey's <a href="geektalk.htm" target="iskTopFrame">Geek Talk</a>.
<p>David Sanner straddles two worlds. (Huuhh-uhh-huhhh. He said "straddle.") By day, he works as a cheerful technology-expert extraordinaire in a big old warehouse, and by night he plays a cool sparkly drum set in another big old warehouse for a band curr
ently known as the Shitty Shitty Band Band.
<p>Oh, and Sanner wrote the bitchin' Java applet on Webmonkey's <a
href="http://www.webmonkey.com/">front door</a>.
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<P><font size="4"><tt><b><img src="derekhea.gif" alt="[Derek's head]" border="0"> <a href="http://www.hotwired.com/staff/derek/">Derek M. Powazek</a>, production manager</b></tt></font>
<p>A long-time Californian, Derek M. Powazek went to the University of California in Santa Cruz and he can remember nearly most of it. There is even a semi-nude mural of Derek on a wall at his alma mater. If you find it, send him a picture of yourself in
front of it, and he'll mail you a burrito. Derek still believes the most powerful word in the English language is "<a href="http://www.fray.com/" target="iskTopFrame">I</a>."
<p>Oh, and Derek tweaks the HTML in Webmonkey every day. He also took most of those little photos at the top of the columns. (He asked everyone to growl like a tiger. Few did.)
<p>Eric's family immigrated to Vermont from Canada in 1943. His father was avoiding the draft and didn't realize the United States was also in conflict with the Axis powers. He was granted instant citizenship and drafted into the army, where he was used i
n numerous experiments which to date remain unverified. As a result, Eric was born with no color vision and a secondary pupil in his left eye. In school, he was involved in a new technological therapy for the blind, where colors are converted into smells.
Today, he does all his work with special goggles that move the spectral energy of color through a computer, and into his nose by way of a long copper tube. It hurts. He enjoys the process of design because it makes him sneeze.
<p>Oh, and he designs the living bejeezus out of Webmonkey.
<p>Jeff knows so much about computers that he can actually define the word "interactivity" without boring everyone to death. As head of HotWired's Interface Squad and point person for the front door design, Veen could be considered the plastic surgeon for
HotWired's face. He is famous for organizing massive outings to the burrito joint in South Park, but is even more famous for managing the Wired Inc. softball team, the InfoSox, to a franchise record three-win season in 1996. He's also very tall.
<p>Oh, and Jeff writes our weekly column on <a href="browsers.htm" target="iskTopFrame">browsers</a>.
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<P><font size="4"><tt><b><img src="jillohea.gif" alt="[Jill's head]" border="0"> <a href="http://www.hotwired.com/staff/jillo/" target="iskTopFrame">Jill Atkinson</a>, program development coordinator</b></tt></font>
<p>Jill (commonly known as jillo) has more personality than any three people can safely accommodate. Formally trained in printing, of all things, jillo's best known in the office for defending her Midwestern heritage, romping with the office dog, and excl
aiming, "My stars!" When she's not organizing events like Formal Friday and Glam Rocker Day, she's hard at work helping new programs get everything they need and some things they don't. She snowboards like nobody's business. Jill's modeled her life on her
childhood hero, Eloise (famous in children's libraries, anyway, for quotes like: "Being bored is NOT allowed," and "Sometimes I comb my hair with a fork.") Her mom says she's as cute as Velcro, but we think that's selling her short.
<p>Oh, and jillo helped us remember everything we needed to do before we launched. She also contributes to our <a href="html.htm" target="iskTopFrame">HTML</a> section.
<p>June is the head honcho of Webmonkey Productions, the HotWired development group responsible for Webmonkey, <a href="http://www.netsurfcentral.com/" target="iskTopFrame">Net Surf Central</a>, and some upcoming top-secret ventures. Her co-workers call her "Big
Momma" - although she is neither - and that's just fine with her. June has a built-in geographic positioning device that allows her to be located at any time, anywhere in the office or its close vicinity. All you have to do is make her laugh. Fortunately
, that isn't hard. She's a native New Yorker, a coffee drinker, and a really bad guitar player. Her gravestone will likely read: "I just want you to know, for the record, that yes, I did ski down the rest of the mountain."
<p>Oh, and she's the producer, so her superiors hold her completely responsible for everything in Webmonkey.
<p>Kristin Windbigler is quiet but deadly. She may look studious, but in fact she's plotting - keep that in mind next time a sausage lands in your mailbox. Kristin spent a few years kicking up dirt as a weekly newspaper reporter before she arrived at HotW
ired in 1995. She grew up on a ranch in remote Humboldt County, California, where she studied the arts of tofu-making and rodeo-roping, and became the first girl to play on her junior-high-school football team. Don't worry, though, she's frailer now. She
hopes to someday buy a <a href="http://www.mules.com/" target="iskTopFrame">mule</a>.
<p>Oh, and she helps write the words and gather information from those few who really know.
<p>Luke Knowland runs the show here at Webmonkey. He specializes in taming and co-opting technology for creative use, but secretly wishes he was Jean-Claude Van Damme. He's tied with Eric for "Webmonkey Most Likely to Die in a Bar Fight for Mouthing off t
o Someone Bigger than Him." The man is a production specialist - with emphasis on "specialist" - and his career has been tightly focused, moving him from computer art and animation, to AI-based poetry, to metaphysics, to cooking, to classics, to collectin
g a master of philosophy degree in English literary criticism, to doodling cartoons on bar napkins, to working on the rollout of VRML in April 1995. He likes people to think he's mean. But we know better.
<p>Oh, and he manages the daily functioning of Webmonkey, bringing together design, production, editorial, and engineering to make it work.
<p>Matthew Margolin was born in a big town, and has lived in the Bay Area for a long time now. Mr. Margolin's greatest achievement was hitting a game-winning triple when he was 7. Even his father says so. He specializes in creative nonfiction, though he o
ften forgets about the "non" part. Matt spent many years writing on subjects about which he knew nothing - including steel manufacturing, interior decorating, and computer games - so Webmonkey wasn't too much of a stretch. He gives at least 50 percent and
really came to play. Quantity is Job Number One.
<p>Oh, and he helps write the words and bugs the real experts for their knowledge.
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<P><font size="4"><tt><b><img src="thauhead.gif" alt="[Head of David]" border="0"> <a href="http://bianca.com" target="iskTopFrame">David Thau</a>, director of software engineering</b></tt></font>
<p>Thau was punched in the nose while selling solar panels door-to-door in LA, and attacked by a rabid tourist while working as a maid in Yosemite. When he was at the University of Michigan, a raccoon broke into the department refrigerator, opened up the
jar of peanut butter with his name on it, and smeared the contents all over the walls. In comparison, working with Webmonkey has been wonderful!
<p>Oh, and Thau built the database that drives Webmonkey's <a href="browserk.htm" target="iskTopFrame">Browser Kit</a>. He also supervised all the engineering.
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<b><tt><a href="http://www.webmonkey.com/" target="iskTopFrame"><P><font size="4">Back to Webmonkey</font></a></tt></b><p>
